Buffalo Rumblings
The Buffalo Bills’ offense made a lot of progress in restoring faith in the team this past weekend as quarterback Josh Allen and friends accounted for six touchdowns against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Along the way the officials tossed a few flags and I know that’s the story everyone actually wants to know about, so let’s dive into the penalty data!
Well this looks pretty lopsided doesn’t it? The Bills were pretty average compared to the league, and Tampa Bay comfortably fell below league average. Perhaps the biggest oddity here is that it’s very rare to have more flags declined than accepted, but that’s just what the Buccaneers did.
Also, if you’re paying attention to the charts, I’ll assure you that this is a slightly different shade of orange than last week.
Continuing with our oddball theme here, despite the lopsided counts, the yardage was a lot closer to even. It took effort from both teams to close the gap. Buffalo averaged 6.4 yards per flag, which is a little on the low side. Tampa Bay averaged 15 yards per flag, which is incredibly high for an average.
When it comes to yards negated/impacted by flag, the Bills surprisingly had zero. The Buccaneers weren’t far behind with a scant two yards negated.
As noted, the Buccaneers had more flags declined than accepted, leading to only two gray bars for their Harm calculations. The rouging the passer flag from defensive end Logan Hall was yardage only and came on the same play as the defensive holding flag cornerback Benjamin Morrison, which was declined for obvious reasons.
The vast majority of the Bucs’ 5.2 Harm total belongs to cornerback Jacob Parrish’s face mask flag. The 15 yards assessed was accompanied by two yards negated. Wide receiver Khalil Shakir had been tackled for a loss on the play, which was wiped out. It was also a third-down play, giving up two free downs in the process. For the formula lovers, that’s 15 yards + 2 yards + 2 downs. Translated to Harm that’s 1.5 + 0.2 + 2.0 = 3.7.
The ineligible downfield pass call was pretty routine, but the delay of game on Tampa Bay is semi-odd with it being declined. Why would Buffalo give up five yards? It’s not like it gave the Bucs a down back or anything. The answer lies in field position. The delay came on a 4th & 5 at the Bills’ 43-yard line. Accepting the flag would have given the punter a little more breathing room. The wisdom behind the decision is that the punt is more likely to be a touchback when kicked from the 43 rather than the 48. It wasn’t. The punt went out of bounds at the eight but it’s not a bad thought process.
Buffalo wasn’t much higher with total Harm, with a cumulative total of...
